


This Secret Alchemy

by gamerfic



Category: Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Genre: Canon Compliant, Case Fic, F/M, False Identity, Families of Choice, Fun with Unlabeled Alchemical Potions, Gen, Heist, Murder Mystery, Platonic Relationships, Teenage Gentlemen Bastards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2780816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/pseuds/gamerfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Father Chains only wanted Locke, Jean, and Sabetha to steal one little thing from the alchemist. Of course, nothing can ever be that simple in Camorr, especially not for the adolescent Gentlemen Bastards. A tale of thievery, arson, confidence games, cunning disguises, murder most foul, standoffs at crossbow-point, and love triumphant at last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Secret Alchemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiyala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyala/gifts).



1.

In the unseasonably cold autumn of Locke Lamora's fourteenth year, Father Chains called him up to the rooftop garden of the Temple of Perelandro along with Jean and Sabetha and tasked them with robbing the alchemist. "There is a particular safe deposit box at Meraggio's Countinghouse which I must access," said Chains, using the distinct cadence of his booming baritone that usually presaged a long explanation. Locke damped down his nervous energy and made sure to pay attention. Chains hated having to repeat himself. "My reasons are irrelevant as far as you are concerned, beyond the simple fact that I require it. If the box were my own, this would be a simple task - but alas, it belongs to another. So you see, I need the owner's key if I want what the box contains. Given that by now I should hope to have provided you with the minimal skills required to steal something without humiliating yourselves or me, and given that the Sanza twins are currently furthering their education outside of Camorr, I believe that the three of you together will be more than a match for my errand."

Locke shivered as an especially chilly gust of the Hangman's Wind blew through the thin fabric of his tunic. He met Chains's penetrating gaze with a confident smirk, saying nothing. At fourteen, Locke had yet to encounter any challenge that he hadn't been able to master, and he saw no reason to believe that anything in the world should change that now. "We won't let you down," said Jean, echoing Locke's own thoughts. His voice cracked unexpectedly on the last word. Sabetha only nodded in assent. Locke wondered what would impress her more: if he asked Chains every question he could think of to show how seriously he was taking the job, or if he proved by staying quiet that he could follow orders like a good _pezon._

"I should hope you won't disappoint me," said Chains. "The rightful owner of the items in question is a man named Teremo Jara. He's an alchemist - the respectable sort from the Guild, not the type that the Right People would usually consult. He has a shop near the market square in the Videnza district. You'll know it by its Elderglass window. Somewhere in his possession he will have a key like this one." Chains produced a small brass key from a pocket inside his coat. "Bring it to me, and from there I can acquire the box's contents at my leisure."

"Teremo Jara," Sabetha said, rolling the name over in her mouth as Locke and Jean familiarized themselves with the appearance of the key. "That's a Jeremite name. There aren't many Jeremite alchemists in Camorr, are there?"

"That should make it all the easier to identify your mark, then." Chains reached into another coat pocket and pulled out a soft leather coin purse. He tossed it toward his apprentices, and Jean snatched it out of the air. "Here are some funds to help you along. I'll need this done by next Idler's Day, if you can manage it. Any questions?"

Even if silence might have been more prudent from the standpoint of impressing Sabetha, Locke discovered that as usual, he couldn't help speaking up. "Chains, isn't this an awfully small job for three people?" In truth, some part of him was simply tired of being shown up all the time. Second-story work like this had always been Sabetha's domain, and lately their tasks had involved an abundance of it. Locke despaired of ever having a real opportunity to prove to her that he was becoming something more than the skulking, snot-nosed teaser she remembered from Shades' Hill. He began to entertain the fantasy of taking on this task meant for three by himself, and succeeding single-handedly and with a flourish. Surely that would charm her like nothing he'd tried before, if only Chains would give him the chance.

"No shit!" said Chains in false amazement. "I don't believe I ever would have realized that without Locke Lamora here to point it out to me!" He massaged the bridge of his nose in frustration. "If at this stage in your education any one of you is incapable of performing a simple robbery or burglary alone, I will know that I have failed you as a guardian. Did it ever occur to you that instead of pitting you against each other yet again in the manner that you all so clearly relish, I might actually want to test your ability to complete a relatively simple task as a team without tripping all over one another in your eternal rush toward bloody-minded one-upmanship?" He sighed. "A job that looks small can get big in a hurry, Locke. When it does, you'll be glad to have others at your back. And if it doesn't...well, sometimes it's still agreeable to have others at your back."

Locke shrank in on himself, imagining Sabetha eyeing him with her famously disapproving glare, not wanting to turn his head to see if she was really doing it. "I understand," he said, trying to sound mature and confident even though he did not, in fact, understand. _Why should I drag others along into something I'm sure I can do myself?_ he wondered. _It seems to me I'm only asking for trouble if I do._ "We'll do it together. You can count on us." If working together was what Chains wanted, then Locke would have to make himself indispensable to the others. He would become a living exemplar of cooperation, devoid of self-serving arrogance, essential to his friends' success and proud of it. He had sworn once before that he would never lose again. He had no intention of breaking that promise now. 

  


2.

As the last embers of Falselight faded from the round, multicolored Elderglass window that dominated the upper story of Teremo Jara's alchemy shop, Sabetha whispered, "I'm going in." Since sunset, she, Locke, and Jean had been crouching behind barrels of refuse in an alley across the street. They wore black clothing and long black scarves tightly wrapped around their faces. Locke's mouth went dry as Sabetha rose with a single lithe, fluid movement and slipped out into the deserted street. Even though he knew perfectly well how capable she was, he hated the way that their plan made it so difficult for him to influence the outcome of events. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to rescue her from danger or show her up - but he was unlikely to achieve either by hiding behind garbage and shadows.

Sabetha's insistence on breaking and entering in search of the alchemist's key had proven impossible to overcome. Locke had made no secret of preferring a strategy that would be flashier and allow greater opportunities for him to succeed in heroic fashion. Jean, on the other hand, was inherently more cautious - at least when his temper wasn't getting the better of him - and he came down firmly on Sabetha's side of the debate. "Think about it rationally, Locke," Jean had said. "Teremo Jara almost certainly keeps the key on his person, in his business, or in his home. It would be foolish for us to start anywhere that doesn't give us a thorough opportunity to search those places as a first step, and that means burglary. If that doesn't work, then we can get creative."

"I'm glad you agree, Jean," said Sabetha. "And if we're doing it this way, I should be the one to break in. I came out of Windows, so I've certainly done more burglaries than the both of you combined. Admit it, I'm the best one for the job."

"Yes, and I'm sure this suggestion has nothing to do with you wanting to take all the credit," Locke had said, and immediately regretted it. He was beginning to suspect that his initial resolution not to approach the task with the goal of self-aggrandizement was not actually going to survive contact with the task itself.

If Sabetha hadn't been giving him her disapproving glare on the temple rooftop earlier, she certainly did after that. "That's not what I'm after, Locke. I only want to succeed at what Chains asked of us. It just so happens that right now, my skills are best suited to what we need to do. If we end up needing one of your wild plans later on, I'll be the first one to ask you for it."

"I'll believe that when I see it," he'd muttered, and regretted that too, even though he was certain she hadn't heard him. He wondered if he should apologize after they finished with the burglary. Or was it a bad idea to bring it up and risk making her angry again when she'd never know about it unless he mentioned it? Locke did his best to push his worries away. He needed to stay in the here and now, or he'd be worthless to Sabetha in the admittedly unlikely event that she did get into trouble.

The building that contained Teremo Jara's business and home was typical for the Videnza district - modestly sized, old but well maintained, with a whitewashed exterior and a colorful tiled roof. All the same, it had been easy to find; the Elderglass window on its upper story, assembled from dozens of small pieces of the strange, translucent material to form the symbol of the Alchemists' Guild, was every bit as distinctive as Chains had implied. The narrow, winding street on which the building stood was lined on either side with shops that provided all of the mundane necessities of day-to-day life in Camorr as well as the small luxuries enjoyed by those with coin to spare: tailors and blacksmiths, cobblers and weavers, potters and jewelers, scriveners and dry-goods merchants. Behind Teremo Jara's side of the street lay the broad canal that separated the Videnza district from Coin-Kisser's Row. Although every respectable merchant and successful artisan in this neighborhood had already bolted their doors and closed their shutters for the night, and the streets were long since empty of customers, many of the shop owners maintained their living quarters in the same buildings where they earned their livelihood. Locke could smell their dinners cooking and hear the muffled sounds of their conversations wafting out of upstairs windows.

Sabetha crossed the street with a few swift, smooth steps and flattened herself against the wall of the alchemist's shop. She ignored the front door; by this hour of the night, any remotely competent shopkeeper would already have barred it from the inside. Instead, she pulled a thin length of metal out of her pocket and slid it between the shutters of one of the windows, working to trip the interior latch that secured them. Locke looked away, peering down the street, as Jean watched in the opposite direction. Their role in the plan was to stay alert for any passersby, and to alert Sabetha with their pre-arranged signal - a pattern of short, sharp yowls, like a cat in heat - if they saw anybody approaching.

Soon Locke heard a faint click and the muffled creak of hinges being pried open. He looked back toward the shop and saw Sabetha's feet disappearing through the window. She pulled the shutters closed again behind her, and Locke relaxed a little. With Sabetha inside, one of the riskier parts of the plan was now complete. Now all that remained was to wait for her to emerge.

The Gentlemen Bastards had spent the past few days observing the shop, getting a sense of its owner's habits and schedules. Their efforts had revealed that Teremo Jara always liked his dinners to be prepared and served in the elaborate, multi-course Jeremite fashion. For this reason, they had chosen the early evening to strike, expecting that he and his wife would be occupied upstairs with their meal for the next several hours. In the event that Sabetha didn't find the key downstairs in the shop, she could simply hide there until the Jaras fell asleep, then search their living quarters. When she was finished, they'd take the key back to Chains, who would be astonished by how quickly and easily they had accomplished the task. Locke would humbly say that Sabetha had done it all, that he had known all along that she was the right one for the job. At that, Chains would be even more astonished by Locke's ability to set aside his ego for the good of the team, just as he had asked. As for Sabetha...well, she would be impressed, too. In the middle of the night she would come to him in his room and...

"Locke." Jean's hand squeezed Locke's upper arm, startling him out of his fantasy. Locke blinked several times and came back to his senses. The street remained empty and silent, and Sabetha was nowhere to be seen. Very little time had passed since she had gone inside the building. Jean pointed up at the second story, where golden light spilled out of an open window. The shadow of a human figure moved behind gauzy yellow curtains, its shape receding toward the staircase. If whoever was up there went downstairs and into the shop, they would surprise Sabetha in the very middle of the burglary.

Locke's heart began to hammer. "Shit," he whispered. "I'm giving her the signal."

Jean tightened his grip. "Wait. We don't know that she's been seen yet. She can do this." Locke didn't listen. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelped out the prearranged warning. Jean sighed heavily. Locke watched the shop windows for any movement, listening for any response from Sabetha that would tell him that she was safe. Instead, a piercing, high-pitched scream echoed out from inside the building and split open the still night air.

Before he fully understood what he was doing, Locke jumped up, ready to charge into the street. Jean pulled him roughly back down behind the barrel. The shutters of the shop window flew open, and Sabetha leaped out from behind them with her scarf askew, her eyes wild, her hands empty. Inside the shop, the screaming continued, and Locke was relieved to realize this meant that Sabetha probably hadn't been the one doing it. Sabetha paused outside the window long enough to flash a few hand signals at Locke and Jean - _Made by target. Major complications. Meet up at our fall-back location._ \- before she sprinted away, disappearing into the welcoming shadows.

Despite the fear and worry that clenched at his guts, the years that Locke had spent under Chains's tutelage meant that in a crisis like this one, he knew better than to do anything other than what he'd been told. As the screaming resolved into terrified shouts of, "The watch! Call the watch!", he followed Jean deeper into the alley, where it came to a dead end against the back wall of a stable. Earlier that evening, Sabetha had fastened a rope to the stable's roof to aid in their getaway later. Now they swiftly climbed it, and Jean pulled it up behind them. Locke and Jean raced away across the tops of the buildings, leaping and clambering from roof to roof, crouching low to avoid detection as they ran, hearing the commotion of the yellowjackets' arrival fade away behind and beneath them.

They crept along, high above the shops and houses, in a roughly diagonal path until they reached the canal that separated the Videnza district from the Fauria. At the water's edge, they slid down a drainpipe and crossed a glass catbridge to the other side. Now that there was enough distance between themselves and the mess that they had left behind, they removed their scarves and walked briskly yet naturally to the rendezvous point. Locke began to worry for Sabetha again as they approached the disused tenement that was their agreed-upon meeting spot. What if the yellowjackets had caught up to her? If she didn't show up, should they assume that she'd been captured and that she needed help? What could they do to rescue her if she did? His fears turned to relief when he saw that she was already there in the doorway, awaiting their arrival.

"Thank all the gods." Locke rushed up to Sabetha, with Jean close behind. "What happened?"

Sabetha tried to brush off Locke's concerns with a casual shrug, but he could see that she was rattled. "I don't know. I barely got the chance to look around before Master Jara's wife came down the stairs. So I didn't find the key, obviously." Flushed and still panting with the exertion of her narrow escape, she pulled her rumpled black scarf away from her neck and used it to towel sweat from her brow.

"Was that why she screamed? Were you spotted?" Locke asked.

"She looked right at me. I don't think she saw my face, though. Anyway, once she saw what was down there with me in the shop, she had bigger concerns."

Locke and Jean both frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?" asked Jean.

"I told you, major complications, right? Well…" Sabetha sat down on the tenement's sagging stoop and dropped her head into her hands. "The reason I couldn't look around very much was the same reason Jara's wife started screaming. When I went behind the sales counter, Master Jara was right there." 

"Crooked Warden," Locke said, astounded. "How did you get away from him?"

"It wasn't very hard," Sabetha replied, her mouth twisting into a wry smile. "He was dead."

  


3.

Locke and Sabetha sat together in glum silence in the kitchen of the Elderglass burrow beneath the Temple of Perelandro. Locke could scarcely believe that only a few hours earlier he had imagined celebrating an easy victory in this very place. Any desire to best Sabetha at her own game had utterly deserted him. Now everything had gone wrong and there was nothing he could do to fix it. He tried several times to say something comforting, opening and closing his mouth uselessly with each failed attempt, until he finally managed, "I'm sorry you had to see that."

Sabetha's ability to make him feel an inch tall without saying a word exceeded that of anyone else he had ever known. "Don't be condescending, Locke. Do you really think I've never seen a dead body before?"

"That's not what I meant," he said, but weakly - he had to admit he'd probably deserved that one. Sabetha was as much a Shades' Hill orphan as Locke, after all, and hardly a stranger to the harsher, meaner side of life. For all that he knew about her past, she might even have had it harder than he did growing up.

To Locke's great relief, the sound of a door opening and closing from somewhere deep inside the burrow rescued him from the awkward conversation at hand. Jean entered the kitchen and pulled off the Sorrowful Visage that masked his face, a souvenir of his brief recent sojourn at Revelation House, where he had thoroughly plundered the secrets of the priesthood of Aza Guilla. He sank down into a chair next to Locke. "Teremo Jara definitely didn't have the key anywhere on his person," he announced. "I'm certain of it. My search was very thorough."

"Well done, Jean." Locke felt a surge of optimism for the first time that night since he'd heard Jara's wife screaming. Jean's idea of impersonating a priest of Aza Guilla in order to get a closer look at the body while he pretended to perform the proper prayers and death rites had been an excellent one. Even without the key, the mere fact of having executed any plan without fucking it up spectacularly served as a bright spot under the circumstances.

"I guess it was too much to ask for him to have it in his purse the whole time," said Sabetha. "Though the gods know we could use an easy score for once. Did you learn anything else interesting?"

Jean nodded. "I overheard Jara's wife - Rada, that's her given name - talking to the yellowjackets. She said her husband had been working late to fill some orders for his clients, and when she came downstairs to tell him that his dinner was ready, she found him dead on the floor. She thinks he may have made a mistake mixing things in his alchemy workshop and poisoned himself accidentally. Judging by the body, it's not a bad theory. His appearance showed signs of death by poison, but there were no wounds or other marks on him that I could see."

"Did she say anything about an intruder?" Sabetha asked.

"Not a word."

"That doesn't make sense." With a furrowed brow, Sabetha stood up and began to pace the kitchen. "I know she saw me standing over the body. It's the very definition of suspicious. Why wouldn't she mention it to the yellowjackets unless she had something to hide?"

"Does it matter?" Jean took his optics off and rubbed his eyes, yawning. "I'm exhausted, Sabetha. I just want to go to sleep and have a few hours' rest without having to think about how fucked we are. Jara's too dead for us to trick the key out of him, and there's no way we're getting away with a break-in again. Whether or not his death was an accident like his wife thinks, the city watch is going to be all over that street for days to come. We're going to have to go crawling back to Chains and tell him we've failed."

"I'm not so sure about that," Locke said. While Jean and Sabetha had been talking, he'd been turning the pieces of the problem over in his mind, thinking, considering, scheming. Now he was beginning to see how the shards of their previous idea could be formed again into something new - components of an alchemy all his own, mixed and heated and ultimately transformed. _This is my chance,_ he thought. _I'll prove to Sabetha and Chains and everyone else that I am the secret to our success._ "I have a plan…"

  


4.

A hastily lettered sign nailed to the door of Teremo Jara's shop proclaimed, CLOSED INDEFINITELY DUE TO FAMILY TRAGEDY. Even so, it did nothing to deter the three people who came to call on the second day after its proprietor's demise. They were dressed in sensible, well-tailored tunics and breeches in subdued and tasteful colors and styles, yet they appeared to have barely left their adolescence behind them. The tallest of the three, a baby-faced young man who endeavored to project the attitude of a bodyguard, wore optics and a vaguely intimidating sneer and had a wooden truncheon slung from his belt. The nondescript, smaller man at his side carried an oiled canvas satchel over one shoulder. The third visitor was a woman with frizzy brown hair, wood-rimmed optics, and a ruddy and blemished complexion that marked her as a survivor of flesh fever, a frequently fatal and always disfiguring childhood disease. As she knocked on the door, she called out, "Hello? Is anyone home? We'd like to speak with Madam Rada Jara, please."

Locke swallowed hard and shifted the satchel on his back as Sabetha continued to bang on the door. _I hope nobody notices that her hair is a bad wig and her optics are false,_ he thought. All the same, her reasons for adopting such an extreme disguise compared to himself and to Jean were understandable. "I don't think Jara's wife got a very good look at me, but it's best if I assume I might be recognized," she'd explained as she affixed the false scars and boils to her cheeks, forehead, and chin. It saddened Locke in a way he couldn't fully articulate to see her features disappearing behind such a deliberately repulsive façade. When he'd foolishly tried to say something about it, she had scoffed at him, saying, "This is all just theatre, Locke. Don't waste your time feeling sad about bullshit that will wash off with my next bath." He'd considered telling her that he would still think she looked good even if she really had contracted flesh fever, but he'd ultimately decided against it. Probably she would think that was all just theatre too.

After the fourth or fifth round of knocking and calling out, a woman finally opened the door from inside. "What is it?" asked Rada Jara in a small, shaky voice thick with grief and with the lilting accent of Jerem. She was young, too, barely older than the Gentlemen Bastards themselves, with the dark skin and straight black hair of a Jeremite and the modest yet fashionable clothing of a successful merchant's wife. Her dress was stained and rumpled as if she had been wearing it for some time, and her wide, wet eyes were reddened and puffy.

Locke reached into his satchel and pulled out a few sheets of neatly rolled parchment that had been tied together with a thin strip of brown leather. He stepped forward, summoning up all the confidence and professionalism he could muster and projecting it outward in the form of a polite bow. "Greetings, madam. You are Rada Jara, are you not?"

"I am," she replied, sniffling and dabbing at a stray tear with a lace-bordered handkerchief.

"Madam, first I must extend to you our deepest sympathies on the tragic loss of your husband. We were grieved to learn of his passing."

Rada gave a slight nod. "Thank you." She sounded all too accustomed to hearing words of condolence. "But who are you? How did you know about that? I don't believe we've ever met."

"I am Lamberto Trezza, an employee of the Emelandri Agency. These are my associates, Julian Callas and Sofi Della Mera." Jean and Sabetha acknowledged their respective aliases and performed the appropriate gestures and postures of greetings and sympathies. "Are you familiar with the work that our company performs?"

"No, I'm afraid not." This was to be expected - the Emelandri Agency was a complete fiction, but if everything went according to plan, by the time Rada or anyone else could confirm or deny its existence, the Gentlemen Bastards' work would be long since completed.

"We are an association of private investigators and caravan guards for hire, with a particular interest in the concerns of the merchant class." Locke handed over the roll of parchments. "Here are our credentials, as well as the contract your husband signed with us several months ago. As you can see, he hired us in advance to perform an investigation of the circumstances of his demise, contingent upon any reasonable suspicion of foul play. That is to say, your husband informed us that if he were to pass away in any manner that could be seen as even remotely unexpected, he desired that the situation be thoroughly investigated by a neutral party. Yesterday the city watch informed us of what had happened, as per our usual arrangement with them. And so, we have come to you now to carry out your husband's last wishes."

Locke fell silent as Rada unrolled the forged documents, carefully holding his face in a mask of neutral kindness and benign concern. This was the part of the plan that he liked the least. Although Jean had done the best he could to craft an assortment of believable legal documents and official-looking identification papers on a tight deadline, he had obviously been unable to do anything but make his best guess at Teremo Jara's signature on the false contract. If Rada looked too closely at it, the con would be over with the first touch scarcely begun.

Rada's brow wrinkled with doubt as she scanned through the papers. "Master Trezza...this is so much to take in. The city watch agreed that my husband's death was an accident. I know of no one who might mean him ill. A private investigation? Why would he spend his money on such a thing? And why wouldn't he tell me about it if he did?" A sob caught in her throat and she blew her nose loudly into her handkerchief.

Locke didn't want to admit it, but he was already at a loss. He hadn't even known how to comfort Sabetha after she discovered Teremo Jara's body; consoling the alchemist's own grieving widow seemed so much more complicated that he had no idea where to begin. When Sabetha spoke up, the gratitude that surged through him was strong enough that he wondered if he might fall over. "Damn these bull-headed, secretive men," she said with a rough Verrari accent that added yet another layer to her disguise. "Why must they make it so difficult for us?" She stepped forward, placed a hand on each of Rada's shoulders, and met her eyes with a firm yet compassionate gaze. "I am so sorry to hear that he did not inform you of his wishes. You have every right to be confused and upset. It was wrong of your husband to keep this from you. The partners in a marriage should have no secrets between them, don't you think?"

"Yes," Rada whispered.

"Then if there was anything else that your husband was not telling you, you have a right to know about it - for your own peace of mind, as well as for your safety. And if we can prove quickly that his sad and unexpected passing was an accident, as you have said - well, then our business will be concluded promptly and we will trouble you no longer. So what do you say, madam? May we come inside and have a look around the shop?"

Rada hesitated for only a moment longer before she handed the papers back to Locke and pulled the door open. She shook her head as she regarded the three Gentlemen Bastards. "Gods, I can hardly believe any of this is happening. And you're all so young to be involved in such a terrible line of work."

Locke tensed, wondering if Rada's comment meant that they really looked as much like children dressed up in their parents' old, oversized clothes as he had feared. But Sabetha responded immediately and coolly, drawing herself up into a stiff posture that suggested she'd heard this all before, as if putting on armor against a weapon deployed all too frequently against her. "Whatever our ages, madam, I assure you that we will fulfill our contract with your husband to the full extent of our ability." It wasn't even really a lie, technically speaking.

Rada appeared to accept this assurance. "Then come inside."

The interior of Teremo Jara's shop was tidily kept, though the floor was tracked with dirt from the comings and goings of the yellowjackets, and dust had begun to accumulate on some of the surfaces. Alchemical potions, powders, gadgets, and trinkets stood in crisp rows on the shelves and in the display cases. Large, neatly lettered placards affixed to the walls listed the name, function, and price of each item for sale. At the back of the shop, an arched doorway led to the workshop where Jara had developed and manufactured his goods. Beside the workshop door, an iron staircase spiraled up into the Jaras' living quarters. "Come along, Lamberto," said Jean to Locke as they entered. "Let's get started while Sofi has a chat with Madam Jara."

Locke was perfectly content to accept this division of labor. Sabetha seemed much more confident and comfortable in her interactions with Rada anyway, or at least she was better at pretending that she was. As the two women sat down on a small bench under the display window to talk, Locke and Jean began a careful search of the sales floor and the workshop. If questioned, they would claim to be hunting for clues that might either shed more light on the methods and motives behind Teremo Jara's untimely demise or prove beyond all doubt that it had been an accident - although their actual goal was to search for and pocket his safe deposit key. Locke donned a pair of leather gloves to protect himself from anything hazardous that he might encounter as he rifled through papers, pulled out drawers, and looked under and behind furniture. Occasionally, he dropped particularly intriguing potion bottles or bits of gadgetry into the satchel he carried. Rada didn't even appear to notice.

As he searched, he half-listened to Sabetha's conversation with Rada. "Did your husband have any enemies in Camorr?" Sabetha was asking.

"No. None at all." Rada's voice was still shaky, but much calmer and more focused than it had been when she answered the door. Sabetha had clearly been working her usual conversational alchemy to charm their mark, putting Rada at ease and encouraging her to open up as if Sabetha were an old friend. "Teremo was not a popular man in Jerem, but he left all that behind when he came to Camorr. Nobody there was dedicated enough to follow him that far, not after so many years spent away from home."

"What do you mean, he was unpopular?"

"In Jerem, most alchemy is turned to sordid means. Alchemists there make drugs, poisons, things of that nature. My husband had no interest in wasting his talents on such matters. Many in our homeland took his refusals personally. When we wed, he used my dowry to emigrate to Camorr and join the Alchemists' Guild. This city and its opportunities suited him much better."

"Are you sure that there was no one here who disliked him? It needn't have been a long-standing rival. It could just as easily have been someone he met in passing who took a small, perceived slight especially poorly. Did anything like that happen recently? Sadly, it doesn't take much provocation for some Camorri to decide that they must kill."

Rada was silent for long moments, considering. "There was one customer," she finally said. "I don't know his name. He came into the shop about two weeks ago. I heard my husband talking to him while I was balancing the ledgers. He wanted...dangerous things. Poisons, smoke bombs, a powder to blow in a person's face to put them to sleep. Teremo took grave offense. He said he left Jerem because he was tired of making those things, and the man said he would be a fool not to take the coin he was offering - in much ruder terms, of course. They argued for quite some time. Finally, Teremo said he would call the watch if the man didn't leave. The customer did as he was told, but it was all very intense. I can't believe I forgot about that before."

"Can you tell me anything more about this man?" Sabetha was taking notes on a scrap of parchment, sounding genuinely interested. "What did he look like?"

"He looked Camorri. Dark curly hair, olive skin. A mustache, no beard. And he had a big tattoo on his chest. A black shark, leaping out of water." A fresh sob caught in Rada's throat. "Dear gods. It was him, wasn't it? He's the one who killed my husband."

Sabetha moved quickly to Rada's side and clasped her hand. "We can't know that for certain. Not yet. But you've given us an excellent lead. We'll follow up on it right away."

Rada pulled her hand away and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief again. "I'm sorry. I must ask you to leave now. I need time to think about all of this - alone."

"Of course." Sabetha smiled at Rada with infinite patience and understanding, then called out to Locke and Jean, "Lamberto, Julian. Our business here is concluded for now."

"We need more time to investigate," said Jean. "There might still be something we're missing."

"May we come back tomorrow morning, then?" Sabetha asked Rada.

"Yes," said Rada. "Please do."

As the Gentlemen Bastards made their way toward the door, Locke held up his satchel, which was full of alchemical items from the workshop, shelves, and display cases. "This is evidence," he explained. "We need to take it back to our headquarters to give proper consideration to its implications. Don't worry, we'll return it all when the investigation is over." Before Rada could object, he pulled the door closed behind them and marched out into the street, brimming with the satisfaction of a business well robbed right under the nose of its proprietor.

  


5.

"So we still don't have the key," said Locke, back in the underground burrow. "But look at all of this fabulous shit that we _do_ have!" He gestured at the contents of his satchel, which he had spread out on the witchwood table in the dining room. Envelopes of mysterious powders, stoppered glass bottles with murky contents, wooden tubes, metal flasks, sticks of incense, light-globes in all colors and sizes, and bits of unidentifiable plants and curious mechanisms sprawled across the dark wood like a third-rate street merchant's illicit wares.

Jean seemed duly impressed by the haul, but Sabetha rolled her eyes. The skin of her face was rough and reddened from scrubbing away her Sofi Della Mera makeup. "You realize that robbing Rada Jara blind was hardly the point of the exercise, right?" she said. "Besides, Locke, half of that so-called fabulous shit wasn't labeled individually. You don't have the slightest idea what most of it does."

"So we'll bring it back with us tomorrow and steal the right labels for it. Come on, Sabetha, you have to admit that it makes for a nice bonus. If there's anything you want from the shop, let me know, and I'll steal it special for you."

"What I really want," said Sabetha, "is to know whether Teremo Jara really did have an argument about black alchemy with a Camorri man two weeks ago."

Jean frowned. "Obviously, I don't know anything about the argument," he said, "but I've seen the man she described at the Last Mistake. Remember how Chains made us learn the names and symbols of all the gangs in Camorr? That shark tattoo is a gang mark. If I remember correctly, the people who bear it are with the Rogue Waves. They're nightmen, mainly." Such was the accepted Camorri term for smugglers of human beings, who concealed their customers under flour sacks in the bottom of wagons departing through the city gates, or wedged them into the cramped, stinking holds of galleons bound for Jeresh or Talisham. Nightmen knew the secret ways in and out of the city, which guardsmen could be bribed, which ships in the harbor were the best bet for would-be stowaways. Their _garristas_ often used an iron fist to keep such knowledge closely guarded, since its obscurity allowed them to extract hefty fees from desperate refugees who needed to enter Camorr and from wanted criminals who needed to leave it. "That man's description fits their _garrista_. Pasco di Gaddi, I think his name is."

"Jean, you're brilliant," Sabetha said with obvious appreciation.

Jean flushed with pride, but added, "Don't get too excited yet. Chains specifically warned me about this one, Sabetha. He says Pasco's a mean bastard - keeps his _pezon_ in line with threats and fear. He's not the sort you want to cross."

Sabetha shrugged. "I'm not concerned. We're not planning to cross him, just ask a few questions, right? Surely he has to be willing to at least talk to some other Right People."

"So, next stop, the Last Mistake, then?" asked Locke, as a sensation of mild terror settled inside his chest.

"No," said Jean. "When Chains pointed him out to me, he was only there to bring his weekly cut to Capa Barsavi. I seem to recall that the Rogue Waves actually favor a spot in the Dregs called the Falselight Inn."

"Excellent." Sabetha said. Her whole body was vibrating with the excitement of a bad plan gone madly, unexpectedly right. "Tonight, I say we go there - but as Chains's apprentices, mind you, not in our Emelandri Agency disguises. We'll have a word or two with Pasco and find out what he knows about Teremo Jara."

"Sabetha," Jean said in a cautionary tone. "You do remember that we're not actually private investigators, right? Our job is to steal a safe deposit key, not solve some imaginary murder."

"Besides," Locke said, "you said yourself that Rada was acting suspiciously because she wasn't fully honest with the watch. How do you know she's not sending us into a trap?"

"And how do _you_ know that Pasco didn't take the key from Jara's shop so he could add a little lucrative thieving in along with the murder he was going to do anyway?" Sabetha sighed. "Locke, Jean, I know this errand isn't turning out the way that any of us expected. But even if the business with Pasco is a dead end, at least it will tell us one more place where the key isn't."

"I really don't think any of this is what Chains had in mind when he gave us this job," said Locke.

Sabetha raised her eyebrows. "And here I thought you hated to lose, Locke. I can tell you that I certainly do. And I'm not about to let this mystery get the better of us." She reached out and patted Locke on the shoulder. "We're getting close to the truth now. I can feel it. All we need is one lucky break to point us in the right direction." She stood up from her chair. "Meet me back here at Falselight. I have so much to do to get ready!" With that, she bounded out of the kitchen.

Locke and Jean turned to each other, wearing identical expressions of bewilderment mingled with dread. "We really have no prayer of talking her out of this, do we?" said Jean.

"None whatsoever." Locke swept his various alchemical objects back into the satchel and started out the door as well. "You heard the lady. We'd better start getting ready. And Jean?"

"Yes?"

"Bring your hatchet. I have a feeling it's going to be that sort of a night."

  


6.

The decrepit wooden structure that housed the Falselight Inn crouched at the southern tip of the Dregs, a few drunken, staggering steps away from the docks of the Old Harbor. The cheap, nasty tavern catered to a decidedly seedy clientele of cutpurses, smugglers, assassins, drunks, and sailors on shore leave flush with money and bereft of good sense. It was clear from the instant that Locke, Jean, and Sabetha walked through the door that the Rogue Waves effectively owned the place. The other patrons all deferred to the half-dozen gruff, surly people who were sitting in an alcove and playing cards around a table laden with piles of copper and silver coins, greasy half-eaten meat pies, and bottles of brandy, rum, and wine. Each one of them displayed the same tattoo somewhere on their body: a heavily outlined black silhouette of a shark leaping out of shadowy waves with its toothy jaws wide open.

"There's Pasco di Gaddi," Jean said, pointing at the dark-haired, mustached man who sat in a place of honor among the Rogue Waves. Pasco's red silk shirt hung open, revealing the tattoo on his chest that Rada had described. Unconsciously, Jean patted the iron hatchet that he wore openly on his belt. Sabetha stood beside him, carrying the truncheon that had served as part of the Julian Callas disguise earlier in the day, while Locke had a stiletto hidden up his sleeve. Locke knew that none of the young Bastards had come in hoping for a fight, especially given that they were assured of badly losing any altercation against a whole gang of full-grown adults - but in a place like the Falselight Inn, it was always best to be ready to defend oneself.

"Let's get this over with," said Locke. The three Gentlemen Bastards crossed the tavern floor to Pasco's table. The Rogue Waves continued with their card game, giving no indication that they had even noticed the Bastards' approach. Locke cleared his throat loudly. Six pairs of eyes, wearing expressions that ranged from mildly annoyed to openly murderous, looked up from the table and fell on him.

"Pasco di Gaddi?" said Jean to the Rogue Waves' obvious leader. The Gentlemen Bastards had wordlessly agreed that Jean, as the person among them with the most believable claim on being considered intimidating, should do the talking. So far it wasn't making much of a difference, since nobody responded.

Locke spoke up. "Chains is our _garrista_. He sent us to talk to you." Sabetha and one of the Rogue Waves exchanged the appropriate sequence of signs and countersigns that proved their mutual association with Capa Barsavi's gangs. Even though all of this was only true in the broadest possible sense, Locke had learned long ago that Chains's name often opened doors among the Right People that would otherwise be slammed without a second thought.

"I know that, arsehole," said Pasco. He turned his head and spat on the floor. "What the fuck do you bunch of mewling, pants-shitting infants want?"

Locke, who knew Jean's vicious temper perhaps the best of anyone, was pleased to note that Jean didn't even acknowledge the insult. "Did you have dealings with an alchemist named Teremo Jara a few weeks ago?" asked Jean.

Pasco's eyes narrowed. "I did. Won't be seeing him again, though."

"Why is that?" said Sabetha, sounding perhaps a little too interested.

"Used to give him a lot of business, until he stopped wanting to make the shit I asked for. I guess he's too good for my money now. No skin off my arse if he is. Plenty of other alchemists in Camorr will be glad enough to take my coin and do as I say. Why?"

"He turned up dead a few days ago. Do you know anything about that?"

Scowling, Pasco reached under the table and pulled out a large, wicked-looking knife. Locke tried not to flinch, and failed, as Pasco drove the knife into the center of the table. When he spoke again, his voice was low and impatient. "Listen here, you little brats. Even if Chains actually sent you here to play at being the Duke's own fucking inquisitors, I don't give a fuck. We all got back yesterday from two weeks' business at sea, and we've all got better things to do than sit through this bloody mummery. So fuck off back to your gods-damned _garrista_ and go suckle at his tit until you grow half as much sense as the shit I took this morning."

There was a moment of silence. "Pleasure doing business with you," Jean squeaked out, and retreated as fast as was seemly with Locke and Sabetha at his heels. They regrouped in a corner of the bar as far from Pasco's alcove as they could manage. Jean flagged down the bartender and ordered three mugs of ale, not wanting to create the impression that they were running away. "That could have gone better."

Locke took a deep gulp of his ale, which had the approximate temperature, color, taste, and consistency of the water in the Shifting Market. "You can say that again, Jean."

"None of this adds up," Sabetha said in a distant, contemplative tone. "I don't see any reason for Pasco to lie about being out to sea when Teremo died. He may be a rude jackass, but I believe his alibi. But why didn't Rada mention that Pasco and Teremo used to do business regularly? She made it sound like Pasco just walked into the shop one day and started asking for black alchemy. Why would she lie to us and to the watch?" The shock of realization burst across her face. "Crooked Warden! Do you think Rada had something to do with it?"

"Gods damn it, Sabetha!" Jean groaned. "Once again you're forgetting that _none of us are actually private investigators._ I don't honestly give a shit if it was murder, or an accident, or if Morgante himself became incarnate solely to smite the poor bastard with his magical fucking trowel. What I give a shit about is _finding the gods-damned fucking key_!" Jean was nearly shouting by now, and other patrons were beginning either to actively eavesdrop while trying and failing to disguise their prurient interest, or to pretend that they found the contents of their drinks infinitely fascinating in an effort to avoid being drawn into the conflict.

Sabetha slammed her mug down onto the top of the bar. Its foamy contents sloshed out over her hand. "And that's what I'm _trying_ to do, Jean! If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. You and Locke seem to think that if you wander around the alchemy shop for long enough, the key will fall out of the sky and into our laps. Or are you simply threatened by the idea of someone other than Locke Lamora making the fucking plan for once?"

Locke drained the rest of his ale and stood up. "I'm going to the privy," he said, and stomped away. He hated it when Jean and Sabetha argued. It didn't happen often, but whenever it did, it was one of the few situations that could reliably render him speechless. He could usually see the debate from both of their perspectives - and, more than anything else, he couldn't stand the idea of ever having to side with one of them over the other. So his usual preference was not to get involved and let them work their differences out on their own. These infrequent explosions of frustration tended to burn themselves out as quickly as they erupted, whether Jean or Sabetha was their original source. Locke could only hope that by the time he came back, the matter would be settled one way or another.

The back door of the Falselight Inn led out into an overgrown courtyard that contained a latrine shared by the tavern and the surrounding tenements. As Locke washed his hands in a small fountain, he felt his mood already beginning to lift. Although the night had been far from a triumph, he knew it was a temporary dead end. They could go home, discuss their options like civilized people, and decide where to go from here. With luck, the next day's return visit to Teremo Jara's shop would uncover the key in short order and all of this would be over. Surely once the key turned up, Sabetha wouldn't want to play at being a constable anymore. They could celebrate their success together, and maybe he could convince her to focus on other matters…

Locke was so lost in his thoughts again that by the time he saw the shadow moving in his peripheral vision, it was too late for him to do anything about it. Someone slammed into him from above and behind, knocking him to the ground and chasing the wind from his lungs. He flailed his arms around, trying to slide his stiletto out of his sleeve, but his assailant realized what he was doing and grabbed his wrist. The attacker's other hand gripped Locke's hair, roughly yanked his head backwards, and bashed it into the cracked paving stones of the courtyard. Flashes of white light burst behind his eyelids. He tried to call for Jean, but only a hoarse wheeze slipped out.

Summoning his strength, Locke heaved himself to one side, trying to wriggle free. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that his attacker barely outweighed him. This atypical state of affairs, combined with the erratic and unexpected nature of his movements, allowed him to break free, though he left behind a sizable chunk of hair in the process. As he scuttled away and stood up, rubbing at his stinging scalp and gasping for air, he got a good look at his attacker for the first time as she pulled herself into a crouch. She was a young Camorri with tangled black hair, wearing the rough shirt and trousers of a dockworker. She did not appear to be armed. Locke had never seen her before in his life. Pausing to contemplate her further was ill-advised; she took full advantage of even this small lull in the action to lash out with one leg and sweep Locke's feet out from under him. He tumbled to the ground again and landed painfully on his left arm.

Even at the age of fourteen, Locke could swallow his pride well enough to take to heart Father Chains's admonishments about his suitability for fighting, or his lack thereof. Therefore, his priority in the struggle became not to counterattack, but to keep himself conscious long enough to regain his wind and call for help. Locke stood up again, more slowly this time, and did his best to sidestep the rain of blows that followed. His scrawny body absorbed those he could not dodge, until his head and muscles ached and he felt hot blood running down into his eyes and mouth as he let out involuntary grunts and muffled cries. When one particularly powerful punch knocked him back into a wall near the Falselight Inn's rear exit, it granted him a few precious seconds to recover before his assailant closed the distance again. Locke finally drew in a full, painful breath and bellowed, "Jean! Help! Jean!"

The answering commotion from inside the tavern sent a flood of renewed hope through Locke's battered body. The woman's gaze flickered toward the door. She stepped forward, grasped Locke by the front of his tunic, and growled, "You'll stop what you're doing if you know what's good for you." Then she punched him in the face one last time and vanished into the shadows.

  


7.

The following day, around the tenth hour of the morning, the three young investigators from the Emelandri Agency knocked on Rada Jara's door again. This time she let them in immediately, with a warm smile and welcoming words. If she noticed the bruises and the swelling on Lamberto Trezza's face, or the stiff, painful posture with which he walked, she said nothing about it. Instead, when the initial pleasantries had been dispensed with, she said to Sabetha, "After you left yesterday, I thought of something else you might like to know."

"Yes?" said Sabetha in her false Verrari accent, peering over the rims of her equally false optics.

"It's easier if I show you." Rada led Locke, Jean, and Sabetha through the shop, up the stairs to the second story, past the cluttered living quarters she had shared with her late husband, and into a storage room that stretched from the front to the rear of the building. One wall was dominated by the distinctive Elderglass window that the Gentlemen Bastards had previously seen from the street. Soft morning sunbeams filtered through it and filled the room with hazy, multicolored light. Its hues were even more vibrant and its craftsmanship was even finer when viewed from up close. The window would not have been out of place in the drawing room of any fine manor home of the Alcegrante district - but instead, it overlooked a jumbled mess of musty books, scattered parchments, dusty trunks, and alchemical detritus. "I remembered that on the night that he...well...on the night we have been discussing, Teremo spent more than an hour in this storage room. He told me he was looking for an old formula for an alchemical adhesive that he wanted to try his hand at producing again. He keeps so many strange things up here, and they aren't always stored as securely as I would like. I wonder - you said that you hadn't ruled out the possibility that my husband's death might have been an accident, didn't you?"

"It could have been, yes," said Sabetha, "although we continue to explore every possibility."

"I thought that because he was spending so much time up here that night, you might want to see if there was anything inside that might help explain what happened. What do you think?"

Locke could hardly believe his good fortune. He'd figured that if they didn't find the key in the workshop or on the sales floor, he would have to charm his way into the upper rooms to continue the search in the Jaras' living quarters. Amazingly, Rada already seemed to trust Sabetha so much that she had let them all in without any prompting on their part. "I think that's a wonderful idea, Madam Jara," he said. "We'd still like to talk to you about what we've learned so far, but we'll have a look around the storage room first. Thank you."

"You're most welcome," said Rada. "I'll go make us all some tea." She backed away from them and pulled the door closed behind her.

Locke waited until he was sure that Rada was out of earshot before he spoke again. "That was a stroke of luck," he said.

"If you can call having to sort through a mess like this lucky," said Sabetha. "See, Locke? I told you we shouldn't let some stranger's idle threat stop us from coming back."

"You certainly did tell me," said Locke. "Several times, in fact."

Jean did not appear to share in the self-congratulatory mood. "Something about this isn't right," he said. "Let's find the key and get out of here."

"Very well," said Sabetha. "Besides, I want to talk to Rada again before we get too distracted. I need to find out if she'll remember Pasco's interactions with Teremo any differently once I tell her what we learned last night."

Privately, Locke hoped that they would find the key before they had to do anything of the sort, but he kept his mouth shut and chose a nearby pile of crates as a starting point for his search. As he sorted through the empty jars, scraps of parchment, and bundles of unidentifiable dried herbs that the crates contained, his unease grew. Rada's attitude toward the supposed investigators had changed more quickly and completely than was natural - and she was taking an awfully long time to come back with the tea. Judging by the tense set of Sabetha's shoulders and the briskness of her movements, she was beginning to have similar doubts. Locke was just about to say something about it when Jean spoke. "Does anybody else smell that?"

Locke sniffed the air and detected a growing odor of something burning. But before he could mention it, Sabetha shrieked and pointed at one corner of the room. From no obvious source, a small fire had begun to blaze in the middle of a stack of discarded papers. Hot tongues of yellow and orange light licked up the walls and across some nearby pieces of furniture. _How in the name of the Crooked Warden did that happen?_ thought Locke, his heart beginning to race. _There wasn't a single open flame in this room when we entered it._

Sabetha removed her cloak and cautiously approached the growing blaze. She tried to smother the flames with it, to no avail. The stench of singed wool mingled with the smell of burning papers. The fire was creeping toward the ceiling and floor now, its heat unnaturally intense in the small room and increasing with each passing moment. Locke coughed as smoke slithered into his nostrils. Jean, who was closest to the door, reached out and gave it a hard shove. It didn't budge. He began to pound loudly on the heavy, weathered wood. "Madam Jara!" he called. "Help!"

"I don't think she's coming," Sabetha said, her words barely audible over the crackle of charring wood. "Look." She pointed to the heart of the flames, where a tiny, complex clockwork mechanism was already beginning to glow red-hot. Locke took in the small hourglass at the center of its gears, the chunks of alchemical materials fueling the roaring fire, the long and almost invisibly fine wire that ran out of the device and under the bottom of the door, and felt his stomach turn over as he realized how completely they'd all been sewn up.

"We need to get out of here right the fuck now," said Locke.

Jean's fists clenched as anger mingled with desperate terror on his face. Locke knew that he had more reason that most to understand and fear the things that fire could do. Jean lowered his head and, with a wordless roar, charged at top speed toward the Elderglass window. The wall shook when he hit the window with his shoulder, but the pieces of lead that joined the shards of glass together held fast - and there was no chance of the Elderglass shattering anytime soon. "That's not going to work," said Sabetha, urgency rising in her voice.

Locke fought down panic and began to look around the room. The potential exits were few: the barred door, the unbreakable Elderglass window, and a smaller window high on the opposite wall, intended for ventilation and too narrow even for Locke to squeeze through. They would have to make another way - it was that, or burn to death. Resolutely, he pushed that terrifying thought to the back of his mind. Teremo Jara appeared to have been the sort of person who held on to every piece of useless junk that ever passed through his shop, and most of it was in this storage room. There had to be something they could use to find or make a way out of this mess, something they'd overlooked before. Maybe something left over from his work with alchemy...

 _Alchemy!_ Sabetha and Locke came to the same realization at the same time, their eyes meeting as the same idea began to burst from their lips. Both of them looked down at Locke's satchel, which was filled nearly to the brim with the random, unidentified alchemical potions and baubles he'd taken from the shop the day before. As planned, he'd brought them back in the hope of stealing the appropriate labels to go along with them, but they hadn't gotten far enough to try. "What's in your bag?" Sabetha asked.

"I'm not sure," said Locke. "I still don't know what most of it does."

Sabetha pointed to the far side of the room, toward the small ventilation window. "The canal is on the other side of this wall. Maybe one of those potions can help us break through it."

Jean crossed back to Locke and Sabetha, stifling a cough as a plume of reeking smoke billowed past him. "Just start trying things," he said. "There's nothing else for it." His lower lip was trembling slightly. Locke could hardly imagine how frightened he must have been, or what it was costing him to hold back his fear.

The three Gentlemen Bastards gathered around a clear spot on the wall in question, crouching beneath the thickening haze that hovered in the air above them. The heat rising at Locke's back as he dug through the satchel reminded him of how little time he had to waste. He sifted through the jumble of items as quickly as he could until his hand closed on a large, unlabeled brown bottle. He yanked out the cork, sniffed the contents to confirm that they seemed potentially harmful, and dashed the bottle against the wall. It shattered, and the viscous, cloudy liquid inside fizzed against the plaster, sliding down to the floor in gooey streaks. The wall was now perhaps cleaner than it had been before, but no less solid.

Locke rummaged through the bag again, inspecting and rejecting light-globes, miniature hearthstones, medicinal teas, facial creams, bizarre blends of custom-grown spices. A desperate, silent prayer filled his mind: _Crooked Warden, let me find something that will help us!_ Behind him, the fire continued to grow. It must have overtaken some particularly flammable preparation amidst the stored alchemical components, because it gave off a sudden loud pop, a bright flash, and a terrifying roar. The temperature in the room abruptly increased - although that wasn't the only reason that Locke was now drenched in sweat. He peeked quickly over his shoulder and saw the blaze spreading out in all directions from its white-hot point of origin, a bright and deadly curtain steadily being drawn down over their ill-fated masquerade. "Faster, please, Locke," said Sabetha, struggling to keep her voice even.

Now Locke abandoned all pretense of careful consideration. His eyes were beginning to water and sting, and not entirely from the smoke in the room. He upended jars, broke bottles, ripped open twists of paper. The contents of most of these receptacles fell to the floor uselessly. One of the bits of paper turned out to be a small firecracker that spat purple sparks when Locke pulled it apart, causing everybody to duck and cringe until the colorful embers died out. "Maybe not quite that fast," said Jean, coughing again into his sleeve.

"One moment," said Locke. "I've got a good feeling about this one." In his hand he held a small clay pot full of bright red fluid, with the handle of a small brush protruding through a hole in its top. He pulled out the brush and painted a circle on the wall, big enough for a person to fit through. He stepped back, willing an opening to magically appear. Nothing happened.

"I think that was nail lacquer," said Sabetha.

In desperation, Locke reached all the way to the bottom of the jumble that remained in the satchel. This time he pulled out several white envelopes, each with three small, numbered wax-paper tubes inside. By some minor miracle, the envelopes had been partially labeled in a neat, slanting script: "CAUTION: Apply pastes in proper sequence or severe corrosion may result." In an instant he understood what he had to do. _Very well, Crooked Warden, I'm not entirely certain whether this means I've pleased you or pissed you off. Whichever one it is, at least find this entertaining long enough for us to get out of here alive._

"Stand back," said Locke, brandishing one of the envelopes. By now the smoke hung so low in the room that he was lying flat on the floor to avoid it, and Jean and Sabetha had to belly-crawl away to give him the space he asked for. Over the sticky red circle of his previous attempt, he applied the contents of each tube in the wrong sequence - the second, then the third, and finally the first. As soon as he began the final application, he noted with relief that the plaster and wood was rapidly splitting and crumbling as the caustic substance went to work on the material.

Sabetha's voice was dry and hoarse. "As soon as that hole opens up and more air flows into the room, the fire's going to get a lot bigger in a hurry. Jean, get ready to kick a way out so we can follow behind - and make it fast. This whole place is about to go up in flames behind us."

Locke gaped at her. "How do you know so much about escaping from burning buildings?"

"Let's say I've been learning about a lot more than just dancing and etiquette while I've been away from the House of Perelandro," Sabetha said.

Locke squeezed out the remainder of the final tube of paste, completing the circle. Jean took off his optics and hooked them into the collar of his tunic. He spun himself around to get in position, scooted forward, and braced his legs against the wall. There was a faint crack as the paste finished its work. The section of wall that had previously been encompassed by the red lacquer circle began to fall away, revealing a thin strip of blue sky around its edges. Jean heaved his legs forward with all his might, and a hole opened up in a symphony of splintering timbers.  As Sabetha had warned, the fire seemed to welcome the introduction of fresh air. Locke felt a bulwark of blistering heat rising up behind him as the flames overwhelmed the room. Jean lay down on his back and slid out, and Locke turned to pull Sabetha through next - only to feel her heaving at his legs, shoving him out head-first and into thin air.

The fire had become so intense that Locke didn't even think to look at where he would land, reasoning that anything had to be better that the inferno upstairs. When, at the end of his drop, he plunged into the fetid, stinking waters of the canal, he welcomed their chilly embrace. He came up sputtering and spitting, trying to rid his mouth of the various foul tastes that now coated it. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that through it all he had kept his grip on the satchel full of alchemical potions. Locke lifted it up to his shoulder as he treaded water, trying to keep its contents from getting any wetter.

There was a loud splash off to one side of Locke as Sabetha made a rather painful-looking face-first flop into the canal. She breached the surface of the water and rolled over to float on her back, wincing. "Did we all make it?"

"Yes," said Locke.

"Present and accounted for," said Jean as he put his optics back on. He was the only one of them tall enough to put his feet down at this depth, and even he needed to stand on his tiptoes to manage it. He shuffled toward Sabetha along the slimy stone bottom of the canal and helped her to right herself in the water.  "And so are the yellowjackets, it sounds like."

The Gentlemen Bastards looked back at Teremo Jara's shop. By now the fire was spreading up under the eaves and licking at the edges of the roof. It was quite evident to anyone in the vicinity that by nightfall the building would be reduced to a pile of cinders. Somewhere in the distance, a warning bell had begun to toll. The watch would heed its summons for the sake of saving the neighboring homes and businesses, and the Bastards would do well to be far away when the yellowjackets arrived.

"Let's go home," said Sabetha. "We have a lot to think about." The others followed her lead as she swam around a bend in the canal. She brought them to a more isolated spot where they could climb out of the water and return to the Temple of Perelandro, shedding bits of their disguises as they went. No one that they passed on the way out of the Videnza paid any mind to three shaken-up adolescents hurrying toward the Temple District, shivering and dripping wet. A fire of this size, if nothing else, certainly served as an excellent distraction.

  


8.

Back in the Elderglass burrow, the Gentlemen Bastards changed into dry clothes, tended to the various scrapes and bruises and minor burns that they had sustained while jumping into the canal, and brewed a pot of orange blossom tea to share in the kitchen. As they sipped the tea, letting the warm liquid soothe the sore throats and nagging coughs that followed from breathing in noxious smoke, their nerves calmed and they found that they could talk about something other than the narrowness of their escape and their relief at its success. "At least we tried," said Jean, warming his hands around his teacup. "I won't feel so bad now telling that to Chains, because I don't think there's any way he could have anticipated that this mess would happen. I guess he'll have to come up with another way to get into that safe deposit box."

"You still think we should give up?" said Locke.

"I don't know how we can succeed," said Jean. "The way I see it, there are three possibilities for where the key might be now: it never left Jara's shop before the place burned, or it's somewhere we don't know about and have no way of finding, or Rada took it with her to wherever she's going next. Rada is the only one who'd know for sure, and if she's got even half the sense that we do - which is not very much sense to begin with - she'll make sure to be miles from Camorr before the watch can try to bring her in for arson."

Sabetha groaned. "Rada. It was Rada all along. I can't believe I didn't see it from the start. She must have killed her husband for some reason and then tried to get rid of us because we knew too much. I wouldn't be surprised if she were behind Locke getting attacked at the Falselight Inn, too." She leaned her elbows forward onto the witchwood table and buried her face in her hands. When she lifted it up again, her eyes were filled with regret. "Locke, Jean, I'm sorry I dragged you into all of this. If I hadn't let myself get distracted with trying to solve a mystery, maybe I would have realized the danger we were in sooner."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Sabetha," said Locke. He stood up from his chair and crossed to where she was sitting. "I'm the one who should feel sorry. It was a good idea to look closer at Rada. We found out that she was up to no good, didn't we? Maybe if I hadn't been so quick to dismiss your ideas, I would have realized that she was lying and we could have used that knowledge to get the key. Or at least we might have been able to avoid getting locked in a storeroom and set on fire." Gently and a bit skittishly, Locke touched Sabetha's back in what he hoped was a soothing manner. He was pleasantly surprised when she didn't tense up or slap his hand away immediately.

"I'm sorry, too," said Jean. "I wasn't much help today. I freeze up around fire. Ever since what happened to my parents, I can't help myself sometimes. Or anybody else, it seems. And I shouted at you, Sabetha, the other night at the tavern. The things I said to you were cruel. You didn't deserve that kind of treatment at all."

Sabetha straightened up, pulling away from Locke's hand. "So we've established that we all feel terrible," she said. "Is there anything we can actually do about it?" 

Everyone was silent for a few moments longer. But Locke, who had been thinking about their newest set of problems practically since the instant that his head had broken the surface of the waters of the canal, said, "I think there might be."

"You're not just saying this because you want to hear me ask you to come up with a plan after what I said about your plans before, are you?" asked Sabetha.

"I'll admit that's part of the appeal." Locke was surprised to discover, even as he spoke, that he might actually be lying. In all honesty, his only concern had been coming up with a way to help Jean and Sabetha until Sabetha herself suggested otherwise. It was a perplexing realization, and he accelerated the pace of his speech in order to avoid having to think about it just yet. "Don't worry, I don't expect you to grovel. I really do have a plan. And I really do think it can work."

"I'd love to hear what you have in mind," said Jean, "seeing as how we've all agreed we have no hope of finding the key anymore."

"You're right, we don't," said Locke. "But that's not what Chains said he really wanted, was it? He said that he needed to get into the safe deposit box because he wanted what was inside. The key was just the easiest means to that end. And if there's one thing Chains has taught us over the years, it's that we don't really need a key to get into something that's locked." In spite of everything that had happened in the past two days, an uncontrollable grin teased at the corners of Locke's mouth. "Hear me out. This one is good."

  


9.

The young woman and her two manservants entered Meraggio's Countinghouse as the Verrari water-clock outside chimed the first hour of the afternoon. "My name is Gretha van Katharenn, and I have come to store these valuables for safe-keeping," she said to the guard who greeted her at the door. She gestured to the heavy sack that the larger of her two attendants carried. Her distinct Vadran accent, braided ice-blonde hair, and elaborately embroidered and corseted dress clearly marked her as a citizen of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows, most likely a daughter of a wealthy merchant family. She signed her name in Meraggio's ledger with a flourish and followed the guard to the safe deposit counter with her attendants and her voluminous green velvet skirts trailing behind her. Although the other patrons of the countinghouse may have briefly allowed themselves to take in the spectacle of a beautiful, regal lady fully garbed in traditional Vadran clothing, they all returned to their own affairs in short order. Haughty, successful foreigners came to do business at Camorr's pre-eminent financial establishment every day, and their presence hardly merited sustained attention.

Meraggio's safe deposit facilities were located on the lowest level of one of the outermost buildings of the sprawling commercial complex. Decades earlier, while demolishing an old villa during one of the many expansions of the countinghouse, the workers had uncovered an Elderglass cellar even larger than the one under the Temple of Perelandro. The Meraggio of that era had known a windfall when he saw one, and he had wasted no time in transforming the cellar into an effectively impregnable vault in which the merchants and nobles of Camorr could safely store their gems, jewelry, heirlooms, important documents, and other valuables in exchange for a modest monthly fee. Now, rows of individual iron strongboxes lined the cellar's interior, while a massive clockwork door protected its sole entrance.

The safe deposit clerk, a stoutly built, grey-haired woman in a brown cotton dress with a heavy iron ring of dozens of keys sagging down from her belt, greeted Sabetha, Locke, and Jean warmly as they approached her desk. Locke's heart began to race as he stood at attention behind Sabetha, watching her go through the motions of renting a secure strongbox for the valuables in the sack that Jean carried. As always, Sabetha's performance was flawless - her accent utterly convincing, her words chosen precisely to get exactly what she wanted out of her mark, her bearing and mannerisms exuding the perfectly confident self-assurance of a woman accustomed to always getting her way by dint of her birthright, with no expectation that anyone at Meraggio's should be the first to treat her differently.

When the time came to pay the rental fee, Sabetha turned to Jean and commanded, "My purse." Jean reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the small bag of coins that Chains had given them to cover their expenses. As he handed it to Sabetha, the larger sack that he carried fell open to reveal its contents to the clerk - an entirely deliberate act, undertaken with enough casual clumsiness to make the mark think it had been an accident. Judging by the way that the clerk gawked at the bag's contents, the trick had produced its desired effect. Sabetha affected a cool, vaguely judgmental stare, then pulled her spine up straight and said stiffly, "You will understand, madam, why I require the utmost security and discretion in this matter." She took out the coins that would cover the cost of the rental and slid them across the desk, then pressed the purse and the remainder of its contents directly into the clerk's hand. The clerk's slight answering bow, and the speed with which the purse vanished into a drawer, proved that she was an old hand at this sort of minor bribery.

As the clerk made notes in her ledger, Locke raised a fist to his mouth and gagged. His face had gone pale and his eyes were large with alarm. After he let out a second or third loud retch, the clerk finally took note of his condition. "I say!" she exclaimed with concern. "Young man, are you quite all right?" Locke opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead he convulsed and spewed out a torrent of filth all over the desk, the floor, and the clerk. It was nothing but a massive amount of chewed-up orange pulp - the old Shades' Hill teaser tricks serving him well yet again - but the clerk clearly believed otherwise. With a shriek, she jumped to her feet and stumbled backwards, trying to shake the disgusting substance from her skirts and shoes. Locke spat out a second volley onto her chair for good measure and fell to his knees beside the desk.

"I'm so sorry," Locke groaned, clutching his belly. "I knew I shouldn't have eaten that shark fin soup for breakfast." He staggered to his feet, pulled off his neck-cloth, and began to wipe ineffectually at the floor, the desk, the chair, and the clerk's shoes. He succeeded only at spreading the mess around, and at forcing the clerk to keep a close watch on his erratic movements lest she inadvertently trip over him. Jean followed Locke's lead, leaning across the desk and blotting at the stains on the ledger. Sabetha looked on with an expression of open disdain that was all too easy for her to summon up, shaking her head and occasionally scolding Locke and Jean in Vadran as they bumbled around while shouting their apologies.

After a minute or two, Sabetha seemed to reach her breaking point. "Enough! Stop this foolishness." She yanked the sack of valuables out of Jean's hands and shouldered it herself, each brisk movement displaying her vast and icy fury. "Since you cannot refrain from bringing foulness and miasma into this house of commerce, I shall have to handle my affairs myself. Wait for me outside." Locke and Jean backed away from her, bowing and apologizing. The clerk wiped her hands as best she could on her soiled skirts and scowled at them as she led Sabetha away toward the vault. Locke peeked over his shoulder as he and Jean hurried to the exit with a mildly concerned guard dogging their steps, and caught a welcome glimpse of Sabetha flashing them two quick hand signs behind her back: _Success. Moving forward._

Jean and Locke allowed the guard to usher them outside and sat down near the bottom of the countinghouse stairs to wait for Sabetha. "Did you really have to get it all over her chair?" Jean said under his breath once the guard had returned to her post.

Locke wiped the last remnants of orange peel from his lips. "Just trying to give you some breathing room. I figured that if she didn't want to sit down, it would give you more time to look through the ledger."

Jean raised an eyebrow. "Yes. I'm sure that your motivations were entirely altruistic, and that you derived not a single ounce of perverse pleasure from them." Locke smirked and leaned back on the stairs, enjoying the afternoon sun as it broke through the wispy autumn clouds. He supposed that the whole show really had been mostly for his own amusement. Jean, having spent his childhood helping out with his family's bookkeeping and accounting, probably hadn't needed very much time - or such an elaborate and lengthy distraction - in order to find the number of Teremo Jara's safe deposit box in the clerk's records and to pass it on to Sabetha through their system of hand signals. Now Locke and Jean's parts in the plan were concluded, and all that remained was to let Sabetha finish the job.

Hidden at the very bottom of the sack of valuables was another one of the envelopes of alchemical pastes that the Gentlemen Bastards had used to escape from Teremo Jara's storage room the day before. Having bribed the clerk to keep everyone else out of the vault, and having learned the number of Jara's safe deposit box thanks to Jean's peek at the ledger, Sabetha only needed to use the pastes to burn a hole in Jara's box and remove its contents, no key required. She could smuggle whatever the box contained out of Meraggio's in the same sack she'd used to bring in her own items, after making a small deposit in her own strongbox for propriety's sake. With luck, they would all be long gone with their loot before anyone at Meraggio's realized that anything was amiss. A self-satisfied grin spread across Locke's features. "This might be my best plan yet," he said to no one in particular.

Then he saw the woman. Although she now wore a well-tailored tunic and breeches instead of dockworker's garb, and her face was calmly expressionless instead of twisted into a grimace of rage, she was clearly the same person who had attacked him in the courtyard of the Falselight Inn. She did not appear to notice him as she descended the steps with a large leather wallet tucked under one arm. He tapped Jean on the shoulder and pointed in the woman's direction. "Jean! She's the one who beat me up at the tavern the other night."

A crease formed between Jean's eyes as he watched the woman pass. "Are you sure?"

"I'm certain of it. But what is she doing here? This is all damned strange."

"You know, Locke, not everything is about you. Plenty of people have business at Meraggio's on any given day. It could be a coincidence."

"And it could be something more." Locke stood up. "I'm going after her."

Jean pulled him back down to the steps. "No, you're not. We're waiting for Sabetha, like we agreed. I was right about that the last time, wasn't I?"

"I suppose so."

"Besides, these steps make for a good vantage point. Keep watching your mystery woman, and we'll see what Sabetha thinks about following her once the job is done. If it all goes according to plan, you won't have to wait very long." Jean pointed to the top of the steps. "In fact, I think she might be finished already."

"That was fast." Sabetha was indeed emerging out of the large double doors of the main entrance to Meraggio's. She descended the stairs perhaps more rapidly than befitted her Gretha van Katharenn persona, laboring under the weight of the sack she carried slung over one shoulder. She spotted Locke and Jean and, with her free hand, flashed a signal that made Locke's stomach drop: _Empty._

Jean and Locke looked at one another in equal disbelief. Locke pointed down the stairs, where his assailant's back could be seen disappearing into the crowded street at the bottom. "I'll bet you anything that _she_ has whatever we need in that wallet," he said. "Call it a hunch. _Now_ can we follow her?"

"As long as you save the gloating for after we catch her," Jean grumbled. His hands fluttered through a sequence of additional signs in response to Sabetha, explaining what had happened as best he could. That was all the permission Locke needed. He dashed down the steps in pursuit of the woman, keeping her in sight, trusting Jean and Sabetha to follow.

It didn't take long for the woman to realize that she was being tracked. Whoever she was, judging by her tactics and her familiarity with the back streets of Camorr, she clearly had some experience with the world of the Right People and with the art of losing a tail. She changed direction seemingly at random, altered her speed on a whim, and wove through large clumps of people in an attempt to shake off her pursuers. Yet through every dodge and feint she made, Locke kept her in view. He hunted her with every ounce of his alertness and concentration, knowing that this was undoubtedly his last chance to get what he wanted. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Jean and Sabetha close behind. Jean now carried the sack as Sabetha struggled to run in her voluminous skirts with her wig sliding slightly askew. The three of them together were the very opposite of circumspect, but at the moment, Locke couldn't say that he cared.

At last he saw the woman dart away into an alley. Locke motioned for Jean and Sabetha to follow him and ran after her. He lost sight of her as he he rounded the corner, but there were only so many places she could go now, and as long as one of her hands was tied up with the wallet she would probably have to stay on the ground rather than climbing up to the rooftops. The alley bent away from the street ahead of them, and Locke rushed into it with his companions at his heels. But as he hurried around the curve, he saw that the alley dead-ended in a solid, blank wall.

Before Locke could say or do anything more, he heard a new voice from behind him. "Put your hands up and turn around slowly," said Rada Jara. This calm announcement was underscored with the sound of a crossbow cranking back and the low twang of a bowstring going taut, ready to be loosed and change everything.

  


10.

Locke did as he was told. He raised both hands above his head and turned around, noting with grim satisfaction that Jean and Sabetha had promptly done the same. A few feet behind them, blocking the only exit from the alley, stood two people: Rada Jara and the woman Locke had been following. They each held a small crossbow, loaded and cocked. Rada's crossbow was pointed at Sabetha, while the other woman had chosen Locke as her target. From this range, no matter their skill with the weapon, neither one of them stood any chance of missing. "Fuck me sideways with a poleaxe," said Locke.

"You seem like you'd enjoy that too much," said Rada.

Jean seethed with slowly bubbling anger - whether directed at their opponents, or at Locke himself for getting them into this mess, Locke wasn't sure. "If you're going to shoot us, you might as well get it over with."

"Could be we don't want to shoot you if we can help it," said the other woman.

"Of course you don't," said Sabetha. Her tone was measured and calm, and Locke knew that no one other than himself and Jean would be able to discern the hint of shakiness underlying it. With her hands still held above her head, she made one of the widely-recognized signs that denoted allegiance to Capa Barsavi. "There are certain people whom you _never_ want to shoot. And you must understand, my friends and I are _the very right sort of people_ to let walk out of this alley with the same number of holes we all had in our bodies as when we walked into it. Otherwise, I can think of a few powerful men who might take offense if we turn up dead."

The woman shrugged. "That's none of our concern. We're not long for Camorr anyway. What's three more corpses added to the bill if we're already planning to skip out on it?"

Rada looked scandalized - _not accustomed to the criminal life, then,_ thought Locke, _but her friend must be._ "Alessandra!" she gasped. It never ceased to amaze Locke how much useful information some people gave up in a single word. He filed all of it away for future reference and knew that Jean and Sabetha would be doing the same.

"That's not the only reason you should let us go," Jean said, fiercely and quietly. His rage hadn't so much burned away as sublimated into a terrible, expectant stillness. "There's a better one. Mathematics."

Alessandra's scowl deepened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"The last I checked, the two of you only had two crossbow bolts to do for the three of us. Now, I'm well aware you'll kill one of us for sure, Alessandra. Your friend Rada over there doesn't really seem to know what she's doing, but at this range she could get lucky." A droplet of cold sweat ran down Locke's spine as Jean nonchalantly narrated his own friends' imminent deaths. "I'm sure you have more bolts tucked away somewhere, but it takes a lot of time to reload an alley-piece, doesn't it? I'll have ample opportunity once you've both taken your shots to come over there and bash your fucking skulls in." He declared this with the simple, self-evident decisiveness of someone stating an irrefutable truth about the world: _Water is wet. The sky is blue. Hurt my friends and I'll come over there and bash your fucking skulls in._

A sideways glance of wordless agreement passed between Rada and Alessandra. They shifted their crossbows slightly so that both iron-tipped bolts were now aimed directly at Jean. "Or maybe we just shoot you first," said Rada, the cheerful lilt in her words far from convincing.

"That would be the fucking stupidest thing you could possibly do, and I'll tell you why." Jean was absolutely motionless now, a predator coiled to strike. "Waste those bolts in me instead and you'll make it two on two. Gods help you if you do. You think I'm the only mean motherfucker in this alley?" He tilted his head toward Locke, then met Rada's eyes. "Did Alessandra tell you how long she spent beating up my best friend behind a tavern the other night, and how he still didn't crumble? What's more, he got up and broke us out of a burning building the very next day. He may not look like much, but he's tough, and he's relentless. Cross him and he'll hunt you to the ends of the earth. I swear it." Another inclination of his head, this time toward Sabetha. "And as for this woman - let's just say there's more than one deadly fighter in this alley right now, and she sure as shit isn't standing on your side. She's strong, she's quick, she's certainly smarter than me, and she's anyone's equal with a blade. Who knows how many weapons she could have hidden under that skirt, or what sort of awful fucking poisons she's rubbed on them. Gods, even _I_ wouldn't want to fight her. And all that killing me will get you is a belly full of her steel."

"Those are big words for a bunch of little fuckers who are about to die screaming in an alley," Alessandra said through gritted teeth. Was it Locke's imagination, or was the crossbow trembling ever so slightly in her grip? She shifted her glare to Sabetha. "Maybe _she_ should have used some of those brains of hers and figured out it was a bad idea for you to get your grubby private investigator fingers all over our private business."

"We're not actually private investigators," Sabetha said.

"Perelandro's shriveled balls," groaned Locke. "Why even go to the trouble of coming up with a cover in the first place if we're going to blow it on a whim?"

"I knew that," said Rada.

Not many things genuinely surprised Sabetha. This was one of them. "What?! How?" she demanded, unable to disguise her incredulous annoyance at being outplayed.

A smirk teased at the corners of Rada's lips. "Your attempt at forging my husband's signature on that fake contract was very pretty. Unfortunately for you, he was illiterate."

Jean's shoulders sagged, some of his bravado evaporating. "Damn."

"Then why play along?" asked Sabetha. "You could have slammed the door on us the first time we spoke to you. Instead you sent us running off in the wrong direction, then tried to kill us when we came back. Something tells me an honest woman widowed in a tragic accident wouldn't go to all that trouble. What were you trying to hide, Rada?"

Now Locke understood what Sabetha hoped to achieve. If she could get Rada and Alessandra distracted and keep them talking, their resolve to kill the Gentlemen Bastards might waver just long enough to provide a chance to shift the balance of power. His eyes darted around the alley and over Rada and Alessandra, trying to find some detail he could use against their captors - and fell on the exposed skin of Alessandra's lean, muscular forearm. The sleeve of her tunic was partially pushed up, revealing a tattoo of a leaping black shark. "Wait a minute," he said. "Maybe we didn't go in the wrong direction after all. Maybe where we went was a little too right. You're a Rogue Wave, aren't you, Alessandra? That's why you were at the Falselight Inn that night."

"We won't be satisfying your curiosity," Alessandra said flatly. She shifted her crossbow away from Jean and aimed it directly at Locke's heart. Rada steadied her aim on Jean, although her arms were now visibly shaking.

Sabetha spoke so quietly that Locke could barely make out her words. "Rada. You're not a killer."

The tip of Rada's crossbow bolt wavered wildly as she struggled to keep control of both the weapon and her emotions. "But I am," she whispered, blinking wetness out of her eyes.

"You mean Teremo," Sabetha said. A statement of fact, devoid of any judgment.

Rada nodded. "I didn't choose him, you know. Marriages in Jerem are arranged, and they last until death. Our island's elders thought they were being so clever - pair off the alchemist who won't play by their rules with the girl who never quite fit in, then drum up an excuse to exile them both. They solved two of their problems at once. None of them cared about the cost to me." The words burst out of her, each one louder and stronger than the one before. "He hated our marriage as much as I did, honestly. I begged him time and again to set me free, here in this city where he could break any rule that he pleased, but he wouldn't listen. He said he needed me to keep his business running. To keep his books, to label his products. His money and his concoctions were all he really cared about. That, and being in control." She was nearly shouting now. "I will not waste my life as some doddering old alchemist's slave!" She inhaled deeply and shakily, blinked away tears, and lowered her voice to a near-whisper once again. "Not when there are better things I could live for."

Both Rada and Alessandra's crossbows were now distinctly wobbling in their hands - a worrisome development, although Locke rationalized that he had a better chance of avoiding an accidentally discharged bolt than one that had been deliberately aimed and fired at close range. Rada was on the verge of weeping now, and much to Locke's surprise, Alessandra's eyes were misty as well. Locke saw the concern in Alessandra's face, the way that she leaned unconsciously toward Rada even as she forced her attention to stay fixed on him, and suddenly saw who and what she and Rada were to each other, as plainly visible as the moons in the night sky. It was like stepping back far enough from a stained glass window to finally see its patterned image as something more than a colorful jumble of mosaic pieces. "Oh," said Locke. " _Oh_."

Sabetha responded with a knowing dip of her head, as if she had understood the true shape of things all along. It wouldn't have surprised Locke at all if she actually had. "It's the only explanation that makes sense, really. One of you trapped in her marriage, the other one trapped in her gang. That's how you met, isn't it?" She looked at Alessandra. "Pasco used to send you to buy alchemical preparations from Teremo. Things developed from there. When the two of them had their fight a few weeks back, you and Rada knew you had to act fast if you ever wanted to see each other again."

"How did you - " Locke and Alessandra began, simultaneously.

Sabetha ignored them both. "Rada, you arranged for your husband to have a little accident with something in his workshop. My friends and I were just unlucky enough to stumble across it at the wrong time. You figured you'd wait for the yellowjackets to lose interest and then skip town together. When we showed up, you knew we were frauds from the beginning, so you decided to throw us at the Rogue Waves and hope they took care of us for you. You even asked Alessandra to back up the message with her fists if she saw an opening, didn't you? But when we came back to the shop anyway, you panicked and tried to kill us."

Rada's sudden look of regret was all the proof Locke needed to know that Sabetha's conclusions were correct. _Gods, how she put that together, I'll never know_ , thought Locke. "I never meant for it to go this far," said Rada. "But you must be stopped. We're leaving Camorr. Today."

"This may come as a surprise to you," said Locke, sensing an opening, "but we don't actually give a shit about what you do once you've let us out of this alley alive. You could climb up the side of Raven's Reach and piss in the Duke's eye for all we care. Or hop a wagon and go out the Viscount's Gate for a nice honeymoon in Espara, if that's more your style."

"More like turn pirate together on the Sea of Brass," said Rada, at which Alessandra completely failed to disguise an uncontrollably delighted grin.

"Another thing that may surprise you," said Sabetha, "is that now that we know what's really going on, none of us want to stand in your way." Jean and Locke both nodded in vigorous agreement. "Believe me, we know a thing or two about what it means to want freedom." Locke could hear the cold, hard certainty that undergirded her last sentence, and wondered for neither the first nor the last time if she would ever trust him enough to tell him what she meant by that.

"Then why keep following us?" Alessandra still spoke harshly, but the cold, murderous edge had gone out of her voice. Locke allowed himself to hope that they might get out alive yet.

"You have something we need," said Jean. "It was in that safe deposit box."

"No, we have something that's _ours_ ," Alessandra replied.

"Exactly," said Locke. "And it's yours to do with as you please. We had hoped that now that all of our motivations are out in the open, it might persuade you to open negotiations."

Rada and Alessandra's mouths fell open. "I was given to understand that _we_ were the ones who had _you_ dead to rights," said Alessandra. "I wasn't aware that the three of you were in any position to negotiate."

Locke grinned. Alessandra's response only sounded like a flat refusal on the surface. She was right to observe that she and Rada maintained their control of the situation; they could shoot at least two-thirds of the Gentlemen Bastards dead at any moment and end the conversation whenever they felt like it. But the mere fact that they were still talking meant that they'd already made up their minds not to kill anyone. That was all that Locke needed. "You assume that negotiation means we fuck you over and take your shit," he said. "I prefer to think that negotiation means we offer you something you want in exchange for what we want, and we all walk away from here happier than we were in the first place and just as alive."

"What the fuck do you possibly have to offer us?"

"Something that has to be worth more to you than everything in that wallet combined. Jea-, er, Julian, show them." The large sack that the Gentlemen Bastards had carried into Meraggio's had fallen to the ground in the initial ambush. In his peripheral vision, Locke saw Jean bump the sack over with his foot so that some of its contents spilled out. Rada and Alessandra's eyes widened as dozens of small pieces of Elderglass cascaded down onto the dirty cobblestones. This was all that remained of Teremo Jara's alchemy shop. Although the Gentlemen Bastards had quickly realized that digging through the ashes of the building in search of the key was a fool's errand, the indestructible nature of Elderglass and the price that small pieces of it commanded had made the chance to use it both as prop and windfall too tempting to pass up. They had spent Falselight of the day before sifting through charred timbers and crumbled masonry, picking up each faintly glowing glass fragment that they could spot by the distant light of the moons, and occasionally burying themselves in the rubble to evade passing patrols of yellowjackets. It stung Locke to let go of the hefty sum that the Elderglass shards represented, but he knew it was a worthy trade if it meant not only getting away alive but succeeding. "Let's make this easy. Our sack for your wallet, and we go our separate ways."

Alessandra glanced at Rada. "Can you believe that even after all of that, this arsehole is still trying to fuck us over?"

"All too easily," said Rada, but she was practically bantering now and Locke knew he had already won. This was nothing more than a necessary stage in the ancient ritual of negotiation between thieves, the part where she and Alessandra made sure to save face by acting tough and hiding the relief they must certainly have felt.

"You're right," said Alessandra to the Gentlemen Bastards. "What you have is worth much more than what we have. But there's hard coin in that wallet, plus some papers we were planning to use to help our transit go more smoothly. We'll need to find somebody to fence that much Elderglass. Could be that none of the pawnbrokers in Camorr have enough coin on hand to buy it all, if they'd even give us as good a price as we could get somewhere else. No, if you want us to take your deal, you'd best find a way to sweeten it."

"The Rogue Waves must not be very good nightmen if they didn't teach you a dozen ways to get out of Camorr without papers," said Jean.

"I'd be a fool to use their own tricks and secrets against them. How can I know I won't come face-to-face with them while we're leaving the city by their escape routes? It's too risky. If they catch us, we're both dead."

"So what you really need," Sabetha said slowly, "is the assurance that when you leave the city, the Rogue Waves will be looking the other way."

"I suppose," said Rada.

"That's something we can provide," said Locke without hesitation. "Just discharge those crossbows, and I'll tell you my plan."

Rada scarcely paused for a moment longer before she tilted her crossbow away from the Gentlemen Bastards and let her finger twitch on the trigger. The bowstring twanged loudly and the bolt whizzed free to embed itself with a thump into a nearby barrel. Alessandra's bolt soon joined it. Locke almost fell over as he felt tension leave his body in a rush as surely and swiftly as it had left the bows. Judging by the way Jean was wobbling slightly on his feet and the massive exhalation that Sabetha let out, they felt the same way. He lowered his hands, saying a silent, inward prayer of gratitude to the Crooked Warden. Then he favored Rada and Alessandra with the most charming smile he could muster, took a deep breath, and began again to speak.

  


11.

They brought the wallet to Father Chains at the Temple of Perelandro around the noon hour of the next day. Camorr's autumn weather had rallied to produce one last sun-drenched, sticky day before giving way to the cold, soaking rains of winter. Chains had gone into the dim, shaded sanctuary and barred the door to give himself a chance to drink some water and mop the sweat from his brow, reasoning that some of the mystique of the Eyeless Priest would be lost if the good people of Camorr saw him attending to his physical needs.

Locke and Jean had spent the morning sitting the steps with Chains, sweating through their white robes in the oppressive humidity. They were resting against the cool stone of the sanctuary walls when Sabetha climbed out of the burrow with Alessandra's leather wallet tucked under one arm. She tossed it into Chains's lap without ceremony. "We finished your safe deposit box job," she said. "Here's everything that was at Meraggio's. We know we didn't do the job exactly the way you wanted, but then again, I don't think anyone will be able to uncover that key anytime soon, so we really had no choice. At least now you should have what you needed."

Chains lifted his blindfold, picked up the wallet, and sorted through its contents with growing astonishment. "It certainly is what I needed," he said, rifling through a thick sheaf of parchments. Suspicion crept slowly across his features. "So the key is inaccessible, is it? I don't suppose this has anything to do with the fire in the Videnza district a few nights ago?"

"We didn't burn the shop down," Locke blurted out.

"Teremo Jara's wife did," added Jean.

"So she and her lover could run away and become pirates together," clarified Sabetha.

Chains's eyebrows shot up. "I see. Since you know so much about that fire, maybe you can shed some light on a few other wild stories I've been hearing. To begin with, it seems there was some sort of security breach yesterday at Meraggio's. None of my contacts are talking about exactly what happened there, but the whole place is locked up tighter than a Vadran debutante's bedchamber while they deal with an incident in one of the cellars. I also hear that something rather odd occurred at the Falselight Inn down by the Old Harbor last night. Somebody set off a veritable fuckload of alchemical potions - firecrackers and insect poisons and flares and what have you - and tossed them all through the back door and ran. It sent the place into quite an uproar, I understand. They'll be cleaning up for a long time - once they get tired of hunting down whoever did it, that is." Chains's tone had started out almost playful, but the more he talked, the harder and more serious it became. "Do you happen to know anything about that?"

Locke, Jean, and Sabetha exchanged sideways glances. They took a deep, ragged breath in near-unison and began to explain, taking turns narrating the events of the past week, each one of them filling in the details they remembered best. Once it became clear that they would all be talking for quite some time, Chains ordered Jean to bring in the donation kettle and tell any would-be worshipers that the Eyeless Priest had taken ill from too much sun and would be indisposed for a time, and sent Locke down to the cellar for a bottle of cider for everyone to share. Not far into the tale, Chains removed his blindfold and manacles entirely and lit a sheaf of tobacco, muttering, "Gods. Yet again, you've driven me into the good stuff early."

The story's conclusion was met with long, incredulous silence. "Fuck," said Chains at last. "You mean to tell me that robbing Meraggio's was your _backup plan_?"

"It seemed the sort of thing you would appreciate," said Locke, not knowing whether this was actually true.

The sanctuary echoed with another lengthy pause. Chains blew a long line of purple smoke up toward the vaulted ceiling and said, "I didn't mean for you to encounter all of those complications, you know. I certainly didn't know what you were about to blunder into. This was not what I intended when I said I wanted to teach you about something other than simple burglary."

"I think it still taught us what you wanted to teach us anyway."

"Then let's all pretend that it was what I had planned for you all along." Another pause, another slow exhalation of smoke. "There's one more thing I need you all to do, though."

Locke was sure that the glum dread that he saw plainly in the slump of both Jean and Sabetha's shoulders was also mirrored on his own. "What is it?" Sabetha asked.

Chains reached into the wallet and counted out a small pile of coins. He pressed them into Sabetha's hand with a mock-irritated grunt belied by the unmistakable pride on his face. "When grown men and women come to the end of a job well done," he said, "you'll know it's customary for them to mark it somehow. So there's your next lesson toward becoming proper thieves. Go out and celebrate like them."

  


12.

So that was how Locke, Jean, and Sabetha came to occupy a booth at the Last Mistake later that night, with a wealth of food and drink laid out before them. At the center of the battered round table was the main course, a bubbling iron pot of thick, spicy seafood stew seasoned with peppers and curry. Smaller bowls and plates surrounded it, each one brimming with an array of side dishes: fat meatballs simmering in a chunky tomato sauce, brown bread drizzled with honey, apple slices coated in pungent melted cheese, rice pudding with dates, flaky and delicate pastries. The tavern's best ales and the chilled fruit wines that Sabetha loved flowed freely and abundantly in their cups.

After the Gentlemen Bastards had performed the proper rituals of gratitude to the Crooked Warden and devoured the first few bites of their meal, a barmaid approached the booth. On her wooden tray she carried three small glasses filled with a tawny liquid. "Compliments of your _garrista_ ," she said, setting a glass down in front of each of the Gentlemen Bastards.

Locke picked up his glass and peered at its translucent contents as the barmaid glided away into the crowd. "Well, here's to Chains," he said, "for giving us the most fucked-up test of teamwork in history, but at least having the decency to also give us a night out on the town when all was said and done."

"And to Calo and Galdo," said Jean. "They probably would have fucked around on this task even more than we did, but we missed them all the same."

"And to Rada and Alessandra," said Sabetha. "Long may Iono and the Nameless Thirteenth bless their new life of rampant piracy."

"Are you serious?" said Jean, in defiance of the half-solemn, half-jubilant atmosphere of the toast. "We went to all the trouble of finding out what Rada was up to, and now it turns out it was something you would have asked the gods to encourage in the first place?"

"What did you expect me to do, hand them over to the bloody yellowjackets?" Sabetha's expression was focused and earnest. "I could never have known I wanted to see Rada and Alessandra go free if we hadn't investigated them. Getting all of the information and then choosing not to act still means you made a choice. Would you have done differently, if it had been entirely up to you?"

Jean drew his eyebrows together, considering. "I honestly don't know. Rada was a murderer."

"So am I," Locke said softly. "Several times over."

"That's different and you know it."

"Are you so sure?"

Jean shook his head and sighed. "Even leaving that aside, she tried to kill us, too. She very nearly succeeded."

"Then it's a good thing we were cleverer than her, wasn't it?" Sabetha said, touching him playfully on the arm. "Come on, Jean. If we get too wrapped up in taking revenge and proving our superiority over everyone less clever than us, there won't be any time left in the day for fun."

"Have it your way," said Jean, looking flustered by the whole conversation. "Maybe I wouldn't have done any differently after all. Even so, you surprise me sometimes, Sabetha. You look at things in ways that I never would have dreamed up on my own."

"I could say the same for you and Locke, you know."

"I imagine that's why Chains made us a team."

"Not just a team," said Locke. "A family."

A deep yet not necessarily unwelcome silence settled around the table as everyone fiddled with their cups and considered those words. After a while Locke became mildly uncomfortable with how intently Jean and Sabetha were both staring at him with affectionate smiles, so he cleared his throat and added, "Anyway, I for one never thought I would get the opportunity to toss alchemical potions at random through the back door of a waterfront tavern and watch everyone inside run away screaming, so here's to the job that gave me the chance to do that."

"And here's to us," said Jean.

"Here's to us," agreed Sabetha. Nobody could think of anything better to follow that, so they all raised their glasses again, clinked them together, and drank. The taste was a startling explosion of ripe fruits and spices and a subtle hint of smoke, a complex and delicious flavor that was fully unfamiliar to Locke. As the smooth, rich liquor seared a trail of pleasant warmth down his throat, he realized that it could only be one thing. _Austershalin brandy. Chains must have been even more impressed with us than I thought._

Locke's thoughts wandered away from him for a while then, cast out into the hazy corners of his awareness on a cloud of strong drink. Jean and Sabetha conversed and laughed companionably in between bites of stew and sips of wine, talking over all the strange and terrible and wonderful things that had happened in the course of the job now that they had enough distance to find it all funny instead of terrifying. He came back to something resembling awareness when Sabetha touched his back, startling him out of his reverie. "You're quiet," she said.

He shrugged. "I'm fine. Just thinking."

"What are you thinking about?"

Locke wanted to say something especially profound and meaningful then, to crystallize everything that was swirling and bubbling in his mind, like ingredients being heated in a flask on a hearthstone. He was thinking about alchemy, about how compounds that were inert or useless or even dangerous could combine under the right conditions to become something more than the sum of their parts. He was thinking about the three wax-paper tubes of paste in the envelope, about how they could do something amazing and completely unexpected together if you weren't afraid to break the rules. Maybe the events of the last week had taught him even more than Chains had expected, or maybe it was the brandy breaking down his inhibitions - but he thought that he could see the image of his own life now more clearly than ever before, and how some unseen hand had fitted his friends - his _family_ \- into it along with him, each one of them an indestructible piece of the same larger pattern. He wanted to explain it in a way that wouldn't make Sabetha conclude that he had taken leave of his senses completely, but when he opened his mouth to speak to her, all that came out was, "I love you."

Sabetha jerked her head back, stunned, and Locke quickly turned his gaze toward Jean, who was equally startled, to avoid seeing any more of her reaction. "I love you," he repeated to Jean. He'd intended to make it into a joke to deflect from the growing awkwardness, but as he spoke the words again he was surprised to discover that he meant them for Jean as deeply and thoroughly as he had meant them for Sabetha. His cheeks were burning, but he found that he couldn't bring himself to simply withdraw from the conversation in embarrassment. He had to hear what they would say to him in return.

Jean slid closer to Locke and Sabetha and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "I love you," he said, looking at both of them earnestly. _Good man, Jean_ , thought Locke. _I hope you're always around to bail me out of any similar foolishness I get myself into in the future._

As smoothly as if they had planned it in advance, Locke and Jean both turned toward Sabetha, awaiting her response. Locke wasn't sure how he had expected her to react - to slap him like a scandalized milkmaid in some third-rate drama, to laugh at him, to roll her eyes and tell him that he shouldn't talk shit to her while he was drunk, to remind him yet again that she chose not to be charmed by him - but whatever he had expected couldn't possibly have been farther from what she did. A lopsided grin split her face wide open and she said, "I love you."

There was no time to ask her to clarify what she meant, or to do anything but to soak in the brief perfection of that moment before it vanished. The barmaid came back with another bottle of plum wine, and Jean filled their cups again, and the topics of conversation readily slipped back into more frivolous, more familiar territory. Yet Locke knew he wasn't imagining the genuine affection that both Jean and Sabetha had expressed, or the trust in each other that he could occasionally glimpse beneath every action they took and every word they spoke. He decided that he didn't have to ask Sabetha what she meant after all - hell, he didn't have to ask Jean either. The meaning was simply there in everything they did, as bright and as obvious as the sun.

At fourteen, Locke had no way to imagine the trials that still lay ahead of all of them. But he was right when he looked at Jean and Sabetha, laughing together on the other side of the table, and thought, _I will never forget this feeling_. He would cling to that certainty to the last of his strength, like a man clutching a driftwood spar that was all that remained of a shipwrecked vessel. He didn't understand it and he knew he never would - this fire that burned where he least expected it, this union of opposites, this secret alchemy. It would have to be enough to simply bask in its glow and thank the gods for his good fortune. It would have to be enough to step closer to the flames and let them warm and sustain him, this night and all the many long nights of his life yet to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Scott Lynch requests a disclaimer on fanfiction, so, obligatory disclaimer that I didn't create these characters or this world and that I'm not doing this to make money. Thanks, Scott, for writing amazing novels and for being cool about fanworks. Thanks also to my partner Z, who came up with the initial idea for this story and listened to me babble about it and later served as my beta despite still being mildly bemused by all things fanfiction-related. I owe a final "thank you" to my dear friend [Mendeia](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia), who kindly provided an additional beta reading.


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